1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to computer-based search operations and more particularly to adaptive Internet search operations.
2. Related Art
Searching desired information on a subject of interest is a very common requirement in every field of expertise. Depending on the network domain a user is connected to, the search operation has a preset search space. Generally, there are two types of preset search spaces. A large search space, like the search space that results when searching across the entire Intranet, and a smaller search spaces that occur when a user's search in confined to limited data or a more-confined intranet domain.
Smaller search domains are generally easier to search and often provide more efficient access to more relevant information. For example, if a user is connected to a corporate intranet, his search is limited to that intranet domain and the search in therefore limited to the information in that domain whereby the user is said to be operating within in a small search domain. For a given search string, the amount, and quality of search results the user obtains is dependent on the environment in which the user is connected. Also, the search software in that intranet domain may have limited and more focused search capability that is confined to a specific search type or specific searchable data. In such cases, the search results may be confined to a specific type of information. For example, search results may be limited by specifying or limiting the search within a specific “Search Category,” such as a search through an inventory list, specific design files, phone numbers, or limited set of data. Therefore, getting the data you want in real small search spaces that are not too complex is not often difficult. However, many search spaces including confined or limited search spaces are becoming more complex and more difficult to search these days.
The problem is even greater when searching over large search spaces, like when a client machine is connected to the Internet, a wide network, or very large Intranet. In these cases, the search construct, algorithm, and data sources are often much broader than what is required or available on a local intranet. On the Intranet, there may be no well-defined search category and/or there may be no limited search data space. On the Internet, the search domain is often entire Internet or a vast search space, and performing a search by using a relatively unbounded keyword or string of keywords is common in such cases. Therefore, the searching of large or complex search spaces is not only difficult, it is becoming the common mode of searching for most computer users.
In the large Internet scenario, when the client machine is connected to the Internet and a relatively unbounded search operation is performed, the search results becomes so huge, numerous, and expansive that it becomes very difficult to narrow down the search results to specific information that is of high relevance (or of high quality) to the user's requirement(s)/needs. In this situation finding the most relevant pages or information sources from huge set of search results must happen through manual exploration and human interaction with a vast number of search results. Even after a long time spent exploring relevant pages, it is not guaranteed that a user will find the webpages or search results of high relevance to their topic of search. This manual approach to finding relevant and quality content from the search may sometimes lead to poor sources of data, wrong conclusions, and frustration in spite of having spent a large amount of time browsing and processing search results.